uart, in James and William. Still more if you consider a class
of men, not much worse, according to general estimate, than their
neighbours, that is, the historians. They have praise and hero-worship
for nearly every one of these anointed culprits. The strong man with
the dagger is followed by the weaker man with the sponge. First, the
criminal who slays; then the sophist who defends the slayer.

The royalists pursued the same tradition through the revolutionary
times. Cerutti advised that Mirabeau and Target should be removed by
poison; Chateaubriand wished to poniard Condorcet, and Malesherbes
admired him for it; the name of Georges Cadoudal was held in honour,
because his intended victim was Napoleon; La Rochejaquelein
entertained the same scheme, and made no secret of it to the general,
Segur. Adair found them indignant at Vienna because Fox had refused to
have the Emperor murdered, and warned him of the plot.

Those who judge morality by the intention have been less shocked at
the crimes of power, where the temptation is so strong and the danger
so slight, than at those committed by men resisting oppression.
Assuredly, the best things that are loved and sought by man are
religion and liberty--they, I mean, and not pleasure or prosperity,
not knowledge or power. Yet the paths of both are stained with
infinite blood; both have been often a plea for assassination, and the
worst of men have been among those who claimed to promote each sacred
cause.

Do not open your minds to the filtering of the fallacious doctrine
that it is less infamous to murder men for their politics than for
their religion or their money, or that the courage to execute the deed
is worse than the cowardice to excuse it. Let us not flinch from
condemning without respite or remission, not only Marat and Carrier,
but also Barnave. Because there may be hanging matter in the lives of
illustrious men, of William the Silent and Farnese, of Cromwell and
Napoleon, we are not to be turned from justice towards the actions,
and still more the thoughts, of those whom we are about to study.

Having said this, I shall endeavour, in that which is before us, to
spare you the spectacles that degrade, and the plaintive severity that
agitates and wearies. The judgment I call for is in the conscience,
not upon the lips, for ourselves, and not for display. "Man," says
Taine, "is a wild beast, carnivorous by nature, and delighting in
blood." That cruel speech is as